Stop Making Sense is the piece that helped me redefine my work as a composer and sound artist. It was written on the initiative of percussionist Galdric Subirana who was looking for a piece that would join dance and music in a novel way, a piece where dance and music would become one while each conserving their distinct identites. Around a modified marimba filled with nothing more than D flats a percussionist strikes a note. Its resonance is then cut off by the dancer. What follows is a game of didactics where the dancer force the percussionist to modify his approach to the instrument by taking over the physical space of said instrument. Stop wants to tell a story, that of two people living in independent worlds yet bound by a common physical reality, a reality that both enables and challenges communication.

A true game of cat and mouse, Stop Making Sense is a hybrid where dance cannot truly retain its intended identiry and where music cannot, at any time, exist outside of dance.

Description: Vibraphone and glockenspiel duo, one player plays both glock and vibe

Composer Note: “Glow explores the similarities and dissimilarities between these instruments. It moves at a comfortable pace, allowing resonance to fill the air, shimmering softly, eventually switching to hands for the soft, gossamer landing.” – Dave Molk

Csaba Marján created his composition relying on typical flamenco elements and Astor Piazzolla’s music. Flamenco is a generic term which refers to the music and dance styles spread by Gypsy people in Andalusia. Its oldest form is the song to which instrumental accompaniment and dance can be attached. Astor Piazzolla’s music is influenced primarily by the Argentinean folk music: the tango, though creating the musical genre called new tango he used jazz and elements of the Italian opera as well.

The compositions consist of three main sections. The first one is a fast 12/8 meter material, based on simple rhythmic elements on the cajon, tambourine and by slapping. After this short introduction one of the players switches to the vibraphone, while the other keeps on playing the cajon maintaining the energetic tone. Later the marimba joins the vibraphone changing the mood of the piece softer and calmer. The middle part is slow and calm, where the tone becomes melancholic and dreamy by the improvisation-like melody above the ostinato accompaniment. In the third section the melodical material from the first part returns, though here the marimba accompanies instead of the cajon.

Marimba Four Hands is a cyclical five-movement suite that we
chose as the centerpiece for our concert program. The piece is written for
two players on one marimba, and each movement represents a different aspect of a child’s life – more specifically, Dan Levitan’s children.
Along with this piece, Dan writes many of his other works for his
family. Marimba Four Hands goes on a journey through his greatest moments with his children in the way that other parents also experience with their own children: new experiences in playing, eating, sleeping, and Dreaming.

Each movement has also been named after a nursery tune or a children’s book, giving the listener more insight into the nature of the music. In each movement, these tunes are nestled into the music and dance through the music in a child-like and playful way. The performers are forced to chase after Dan’s melodies through several key changes and
meter changes. This results in exciting, fun, and meaningful music for both the performer and the listener!

Horizons opens as a tick-tocking metronomic trio of piano, cello and percussion. It’s one of the instances on the record where Lansky’s background in electronic music surfaces: matrices of woodblock and vibraphone wall in piano figures that bubble like the product of a hyperactive MAX/MSP trigger.

The movements of the solo piano Notes to Self – alternately clinically and sensitively performed by Mihae Lee – comprise an advanced student’s notebook. The first three movements make commentary on George Perle, Milton Babbitt and Igor Stravinsky, while the finale is fittingly subtitled “In which Ravel moderates a conversation between Hindemith and Messiaen.” Similarly, the aniquatedly-titled Partita for guitar and percussion tours moments of flamenco,

minimalism and even Zappa-esque jazz fusion. Line and Shadow – a lush, Romantically-charged piece for orchestra – uses the musical device of a canon to construct, in Lansky’s words, “shapes and textures that die away.”

Nearly all of the music is driven by concept – distance, shape, various approaches to pitch organization. It makes sense, given Lansky’s history as a master of programming and synthesis, but the startling thing about “Arches” is how personal, how human it all sounds. Poised nearly perfectly on the fulcrum of didacticism and pensive, emotive release, it’s the sound of a toolbox that over the course of Lansky’s mythical, multifaceted career has been opened and closed, internalized and ignored, and ultimately rediscovered and revitalized.

Sohum & Shakti is a seldomly performed two movement marimba duet. The first movement brings listeners into a world that oscillates between bright colors and mystical, dark catastrophe. The rhythmic nature of the second movement develops the world of catastrophe. The Axoum Duo recorded the work in their 2007 album Axoum: New Music for Two Marimbas .

I wonder if she (he) is when the last Dance and decided. I wonder if she (he) began to think that the last Dance from any. I wonder if she (he) is at any time between the feeling that last Dance. I wonder if he (she) has realized that when the last Dance. I wonder if he or she accepted that it was when the last Dance. I wonder if he (she) can forget when the last Dance. This piece is Shimomura Mizuki and respect of Satoshi, Fujisawa h., Masayuki niino composed from two four people jointly commissioned by. Percussion part is specified only with several metal instruments, instruments (so-called drum) and the actual instrument selection is left to the player.

World Premiere: Klang was written specifically for the piano duo Quattro Mani along with percussionist David Colson.

Program Notes:
The title refers to the word “klang” in German, which simply means tone or sound. Throughout the work, the two pianos trade off playing bell tones, which reverberate to form more complex harmonies. These are also colored with various percussion timbres. Though in one continuous movement, the piece contains three sections, with the outer sections containing more pulse-oriented, motoric rhythms and the middle section providing a lyrical contrast.

La-Sen is an amazing example of Maki Ishii’s mastery of chamber music. The players in this work elegantly float over each other as the contrasting ideas create a world of sounds and space.

Number of Players: 7 Difficulty: Grade 5 Instrumentation:

Player I: Flauto

Player II: Oboe

Player III: Sistro

Player IV: Capanetta

Player V: Piatto

Player VI: Arpa

Player VII: Piano

Makii Ishii was born on May 28th, 1936 in Tokyo as the third son of Baku Ishii, the celebrated dancer and choreographer who played a pioneering role in establishing the genre of modern dance in Japan. After studying composition and conducting from 1952 to 1958 in Tokyo he moved to Berlin where he continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik Berlin (West), as student of e.g. Josef Rufer and Boris Blacher. In 1962 he returned to Japan. In 1969 he was invited to Berlin by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to take part in their “Berliner Künstlerprogramm”. Since then he has been active there as well as in Japan as a composer and conductor. His compositions have been performed all over the world. Concerts as “Composer’s Portrait of Maki Ishii” have been held in Paris at the Festival d’Automne 1978, at the Berliner Festwochen 1981, in Geneva at the Été Japonais 1983, in Tokyo at the Music Today 1987, at the Suntory Music Foundation Orchestral Concert 1989, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra 1990, in the Hague at the Residentie Orchestra 1992, to name but a few.